


Villain

by crocodile_eat_u



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Sexual Content, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-25
Updated: 2011-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-26 12:34:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocodile_eat_u/pseuds/crocodile_eat_u
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Specifically speaking, the chances of having found two people the exact image of each other, without a single relation, were certainly slim. Guillam didn’t need to calculate the chances when he looked again and saw the flaws.</i> Guillam finally gives into his demon, his villain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Villain

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since I had read the book, I could not get this pairing out of my head. Ever since I saw the movie, I could not get this scene out of my head. Something had to be done and this is my first foray into the fandom! Hugs for [](http://knowmydark.livejournal.com/profile)[**knowmydark**](http://knowmydark.livejournal.com/) who was the first person I met who appreciated Guillam/Haydon and has just been so lovely<3
> 
> Disclaimer: Do not own. *sob*
> 
> Warning: Spoilers for the movie.

**Villain.**  
   
 _That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain—_ _Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 108_  
   
   
With one glance, he thought it was almost perfect.  
   
But he didn’t think perfection itself could be limited. Specifically speaking, the chances of having found two people the exact image of each other, without a single relation, were certainly slim. Guillam didn’t need to calculate the chances when he looked again and saw the flaws.  
   
It would do though. It was better than having nothing. These little slip ups in his character, in his self preservation, however small, would be the ruin of him one day- yet with this in mind, this one idea floating with such nemesis in the back of his head, he could not force himself to look away. He could not leave.  
   
Instead, he took another long drag from the cigarette between his lips, relishing the burn in his throat, the taste of tobacco on his tongue.  
   
Fleetingly, he remembered a time where he once had control, where every thought was careful, was crafted with meticulous and perfected ease. It seemed so long ago that the thought came tinged with a rose scented haze of nostalgia. Vaguely, he settled that perhaps it was a while ago. He found it worryingly troublesome to recall a time where his thoughts, or some proportion of them, wasn’t occupied with the image of him.  
   
 _Him,_ now of course, being the man smiling at Guillam from across the foggy room.  
   
The smile was wrong, too warm and too young. The thin lipped grimace, the default expression of cool nonchalance gone, the conscientious detail Guillam committed to memory, thrown away as if it meant nothing. Of course, it did mean something - it was the reality of him. What made him real in comparison to the cheap imitation Guillam was contemplating taking home. The faux doppelganger, blinking at him now, sauntering slowly toward him as if he _knew_. As if he knew today he would be playing pretend.  
   
 An actor’s work was never done, Guillam noted despondently as he averted his eyes to his drink, stubbing his cigarette out in the ashtray and lighting another. But weren’t they all actors? In some way or another, caught in the web of deceit the mole and Polyakov had created. In the web Smiley had pulled him into. Or did he pull Smiley into it instead?  
   
It mattered little though, he knew he’d die for George given the chance.  
   
The actor, the antagonist to Guillam, slid beside him as easy as fluid, quiet and swift. He said nothing, dark eyes burning holes into his skin, tearing through muscle to bone, seeing Guillam for who he was. A secret. Hiding. A mole to himself.  
   
“What’s my name?” He coughed gently. Even the voice was wrong. Too soft, the lilt misplaced. It was beautifully lyrical in comparison to _him_ , and Guillam could see why so many eyes glared at him enviously for even looking at this man, but it was wrong nonetheless. He didn’t want perfection, wasn’t looking for anyone sublime. He wanted the cracks, to see a lie in those slow burning eyes measuring him, unravelling him slowly as if he were made from twine.  
   
Eventually though, he rose to his feet, stubbing out yet another cigarette and downing the rest of his drink with a subdued gasp before turning toward the other. Guillam eyed him softly, from the neat brown hair down to his shoes, a small scuff mark on the edge of the leather. This man was nothing like him and yet-  
   
“Don’t speak...” Guillam muttered in return, unable to quell the sharp prickling at his skin, the heavy sour sensation in his chest, hot and heady as it tingled his throat, his glands, the backs of his eyes. “Please.”  
   
The man nodded curtly, one nod in acquiescence. _One night_ , Guillam thought hazily as they stepped out of smoky room, the heavy English wind biting their cheeks. _All I want is one night._  
   
One night before everything tipped out of balance, before it all blurred into a mess of denigration and lies. He wanted one night to pretend he had fallen into his ideal world, that the nameless man beside him was in fact not nameless at all, that he meant something to Guillam.  
   
He drove carefully to his flat, avoiding the roads, despite the late hour of night, which could be traced easily. It was too warm inside the car, stifling almost and Guillam could feel that hot hand of apprehension wrap his throat and squeeze tightly. He could feel his skin prickle with sweat. Beside him, his companion sat silently, a small rueful smile tilting the corner of his lips and Guillam decided then that he wanted to be taken tonight.  
   
He pulled up a few streets down from his flat and they walked to it slowly, each step measured, carefully placed. The cold was positively icy here, the rolling waves from the Thames adding to it no doubt. The London docks were always at their worst in the winter and the wind nipped at the tips of their noses.  
   
Guillam could feel his throat constricting again, a deep punch of misery rolling in his gut, leaving behind a dull, cramping throb. It seemed almost wrong, blasphemy even, to walk down this very road with him. With _his_ image in mind when the memory of watching Mark leave so sadly was still fresh. Guillam sobbed that night and curled tight in on himself, knowing and disgusted with the fact that though he wanted him back, wanted Mark to fight to stay, _he_ wouldn’t let him. He. Him. The man next to him now.  
   
Guillam’s demon. The demon he was letting into his home, into his bed.  
   
The flat was warmer than outside, the musk of cigarette smoke hitting him in the face as he closed the door and shrugged his coat off quickly, hanging it on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. Behind him, the doppelganger followed silently, and Guillam hated it, hated the differences becoming apparent with every passing second.  
   
“You’re an artist,” he supplied in the end, heading into the living room and making a beeline toward the quaint drinks cabinet he kept stocked at all times. The bottle of Bourbon was already out to air, half empty and he realised with a flush of embarrassment where it had all gone. “A bloody good one at that.” Two crystal glasses, gifts from Ann Smiley three birthday’s ago, and he poured a helping of whiskey into them, handing one to the man gazing curiously at him. Guillam didn’t know why he was telling him this, the man had no specific right to know. But he couldn’t stop the stab of bitterness in his chest at the description, at the character of the man this actor had to play.  
   
“You’re also a liar.” The burn of the alcohol in his throat came with relish, liquid courage. It made silent work quelling the maudlin beast rearing its head within him whenever he considered the situation he had worked himself into. The blue, sad creature silenced with hazy, burning amber. “You lie to everyone. Regardless of who they are to you.” And Jim, god Jim. That was a story he did not want to relive tonight. Not now. Prideaux always deserved more. He deserved more than The Circus, more than _him._ He deserved more than Guillam’s miserable thoughts of sympathy now.  
   
The man sipped at his drink carefully, his measured eyes pinned to Guillam, listening half cocked to his whispered words of torment. Guillam could feel his heart clench hard, trying hard not to look into the half lit kitchen, Mark’s smiling face at the table before he wiped it away with one look. One tearful, frozen glance.  
   
“You’re smart,” He continued throatily as they made their way quietly into the bedroom, sweat sticking to his ribs, the backs of his ears burning. “And beautiful, and everyone loves you.” He didn’t bother with the light, the faint glow from the hall enough as he sat on the bed, eyes cast down between his legs, glass balanced precariously on his knee. He didn’t want light, didn’t want to have to look up and see a stranger instead of the man he wanted. “But I don’t think you care.” Almost instantaneously Smiley came to mind. Smiley and Ann and their crumbling marriage. And Jim, Jim’s soulful brown eyes gazing adoringly from across the room, burning quietly as everyone ignored him, as everyone stared at _him._ Connie’s chubby face, childish glee radiating from her lovely grin. And yet there _he_ stood, aloof, unassailable and cold, his smile, that tight lipped beam and sparking, creative eyes forged perfectly on que. He was an artist though, he could blend in with precision, create lies on command.  
   
“You’ve never really cared.” The mutter is short and quiet, the small burst of words dying on his lips. He was only distantly aware of how he sounded, anguished and cliché, obsolete like a character from Shakespeare. It was pathetic but he resigned to it nonetheless.  
   
Fingers suddenly rose to brush against his lips, his cupid bow lips Mark used to chuckle, before drifting down his chin and nudging under it. They tilted his head up, a gentle thumb stroking gently before he could feel the cool, smooth sensation of glass pressed against his mouth. He parted his lips, welcoming the tilt of whisky pouring between them, sliding down his throat. Amber trickled down the corner of his mouth, tickling as it slid under his chin to drip in a soft patter against his trembling hand.  
   
The man above him smiled, so quiet and so beautifully rueful Guillam could not stop the words escaping his mouth.  
   
“Mark...”  
   
The actor tilted his head and pulled the glass away, setting it down on the floor carefully. “Is that my name?” The question was pure, innocent like a child enquiring. The juxtaposition against the reality was both incredibly dizzying and undeniably filthy. Guillam only realised a moment later what exactly he had uttered and his stomach sunk low, throat jumping into his throat in a self-serving bid to choke him.  
   
“No...”He whispered into the dark as he slid to his knees before the man, blinking up at him as the faint light glinted off his belt, the shine a sharp, blinding white. “Your name is Bill.”  
   
The man was half hard, thickening as Guillam urged his trousers down and sought for him like a calf to a teat. He sucked softly, absurd, wet noises piercing the quiet, running his tongue around the head, over the glans in silent worship. Fingers moved to card through his hair, nails scraping gently on his scalp, holding him, guiding him as he moved. He thought about this before, Haydon pushing Guillam to his knees, forcing him to fellate him, asking for it with that assured smile. And he would pet his head, painter’s fingers stroking down his cheeks, his lips, murmuring soft praises, those beautifully empty eyes glistening with ecstasy.  
   
When the man pushed him back, coaxing Guillam to lie on the bed, he swore he could smell oil paint. Paint and the sharp tang of white spirit, pigments of colours flashing past his eyes, reds and blacks and blues as his clothes were shucked and knees parted.  
   
The ceiling and Guillam had months to become acquainted with each other. It was no exception today when he leant back, head balanced askew on a pillow, eyes blurred as he traced what he could of the yellowing, cracking paint. His penis was flaccid, unsurprisingly so, as the doppelganger dove between them, hand wrapping around the limp shaft, thumbing the head gently as a sandpapery tongue stroked down his thighs, leaving wet, sticking streaks across his skin. Guillam’s eyes fluttered, reality and fantasy blurring wonderfully when he sat up on his elbows and looked down to see Bill Haydon’s head between his thighs, lips pressed against the underside of his hardening cock.  
   
“Lean back,” Bill murmured in that soft honeyed tone everyone adored. He brought so many to their knees and yet here he was with him. _With me_ , Guillam thought vaguely, pushing through the haze of arousal and thought to clutch desperately at the small burst of happiness lurking distantly behind the idea. He fell back, his lips trembling as he smiled at the ceiling, adjusting his position as a pillow was stuffed beneath his hips, as firm hands gripped them and pushed his knees back.  
   
He made a strangled noise when the tongue was dragged between his cheeks, lapping his entrance like a cat to cream. Guillam’s stomach tightened in knots, clenching in on itself as he whined pathetically and mewled for more. A man in his forties, with enough experience and stories to render any man from The Nursery, haughty with inexperience, white with shame. And yet here he was crying for more, choking little sobs scratching at his parched throat as he writhed on the bed, completely open, completely vulnerable.  
   
A finger dipped into him, cool and slick and he spared a indistinct thought toward it, unaware of how such a thing came about but uncaring nevertheless. He watched silently as the world tilted on its axis, as his vision blurred and the ceiling warped toward him. The finger moved deftly, swift and precise before another squeezed into him and another, his tight pucker fluttering around them, his thighs trembling, his stomach shuddering with need. Guillam squirmed and pressed down on the fingers, wanting to feel full, feel consumed wholly by this devil, this trickster who had fooled them all.  
   
“Bill....” He whispered, reaching his hands out to claw at the man’s shoulders in silent urgency. “Please...”  
   
The fingers pushed deeper, rougher for a moment before squeezing gently around the spot that made him buzz, fire alighting in his veins. Guillam’s back arched perfectly into a bow, digging his head into the pillow, sobbing mindlessly as his squeezed around the fingers, wanting to pull them in deeper. His eyes stung with moisture, the soft corners damp and stinging with salt as his head thumped, swimming painfully in a dizzying concoction of sensation. He thought he was going to asphyxiate, he could not draw breath into his constricting lungs. Haydon had reached in somehow, his head balanced just underneath Guillam’s ribcage, resting on his beating heart as strong hand tightened like a vice around the man’s lungs, squeezing, choking him- he was going to die. _I’m going to die._  
   
He was left empty when the fingers slinked out, clutching around air as Haydon moved to loom over Guillam’s burning form, pressing rough fingertips to the insides of his thighs, chafing against bone. Guillam could feel him push forward, feel that slick cockhead bump against his entrance and he sucked in a sharp breath, relaxing his sphincter as Haydon rocked in, eyes burning into his skin, tearing him apart until he was nothing but mere cinders.  
   
They rocked together, punishingly slow as time itself paused for them, stunted like a dying man wheezing for his last breath, lethargic and suffocating. Guillam could feel the words fall from his lips, soft chants of more, faster, harder until his babbling became a cacophony of wanton cries. Desperate and pleading, needing to feel that deep pull within him, that swerve and fall of ecstasy as he tiptoed the edge so precariously. The man above him pounded harder, drips of moisture beading on his skin like diamonds before swaying and falling in soft drops on Guillam as they clutched at each other, as they moved and grinded and pushed.  
   
He peeled his eyes open, gazing in wonder at the shadows passing across Bill’s beautiful face as they pushed against each other.  On some level, he couldn’t quite believe it, couldn’t accept the thought that Bill was here with him, finally. After years of silent, almost unacknowledged idolisation, here he was. A small, indulgent smile tugged at Guillam’s lips as he gazed up in wonder.  
   
Feeble streaks of light broke through the shroud of darkness, washing faintly over the man above him, painting sections of his face in gentle yellows, pale whites, his cheek bones, that strong jaw, his large almost doe eyes-  
   
Guillam blinked.  
   
 _Wait._  
   
It was a slow dawning, a creeping realisation as the flaws finally revealed themselves. Or when, more accurately, Guillam opened his mind and sight to the fact that this was not actually Bill Haydon. He did not know who this man was. He did not even know his name. It hurt more than imaginable, a dull, smarting ache in his chest, thumping painfully as every laboured breath forced its way from his throat. He could see the cracks, finally remember how he had got there- why he was doing this.  
   
Bill- Where was Bill? This wasn’t him-  
   
And just like that, almost with a soft, disheartening sigh from fate itself, from reality, Bill Haydon was gone. Disappearing into the bleak darkness that surrounded them.  
   
Haydon wasn’t there. He wasn’t with Guillam and he would never be. This situation was nothing but a moment of weakness, a splinter in Guillam’s cracking veneer. Haydon was most likely at his home, conspiring with Polyakov because despite the evidence still to be shed into light, deep down, they all knew it was him. Bill brought a certain flare to the hunt, the secret glamour. Were it Percy, or even Esterhase, Guillam could not help but feel the revelation would only be followed by the inevitable, echoing anticlimax. Soon enough Haydon’s deceit would come to light, George would pull it to surface and Guillam would be suitably surprised. But it did not mean that he could not shed a few tears for the man, that he could not cling to the smallest shred of hope that it wasn’t Bill- not Bill. Not the man he idolised, for want of a better word. The man he had loved and hated and despised and wanted.  
   
And it made him sick to think like that, to want such a liar, such a _villain_.  
   
Guillam’s head swam as the doppelganger pound into him, feeling the words clog in his throat, declarations and sobs. This was wrong. It was so wrong and yet he lay there and let it happen, willingly brought this man into his bed, into Mark’s bed-  
   
“Mark...” He choked, hiding behind the cool darkness of his lids as he squeezed his eyes shut, ignoring the stinging saltwater in the corners of them. The sweat cooled on his skin when the air chilled, as the man above him wrapped a firm hand around his erection and tugged once, twice until he came almost perfunctorily, not because he wanted to, but because of pure mechanism. Guillam wilted into the mattress, feeling bile bubble into his throat as the actor above him groaned and shuddered, the small of his back arching just so as he came, hot splashes burning deep within him.  
   
He couldn’t think after that, couldn’t gather thought past the buzzing static swirling in his mind as he curled away from the man, almost foetal as he stared across the bed, sense memory leading him to believe Mark was still here, watching him sadly.  
   
He thought he was going to vomit.  
   
“The money’s on the table...” he muttered after a moment to calm himself. The doppelganger was already dressed, standing at the edge of the bed, his dark eyes pinned to Guillam. The gaze hurt, stung his skin and he had to fight not to shrink away, not to shudder as the man tugged the duvet from under Guillam and draped it over him.  
   
“Keep it,” The whore murmured finally, his voice soft, imploring almost before turned and left, nothing but a mere whisper in his wake. Guillam didn’t hear the door shut, nor did he feel his heart slow to a tormented stutter. He lay there staring, empty as he thought of George, dear old George Smiley, the last of the greatest, smelling faintly of Trebor mints. He thought of Jim and how he missed him, and of Polyakov, how everything would change tomorrow, not wholly guaranteed for the better.    
   
But before he finally closed his eyes, and allowed himself to drift off into a black, dreamless sleep, he thought of Mark, and how lost he felt without him, how much he wanted the man back in his life. _Tomorrow_ , he thought as he clung to this naive notion like a raft, _tomorrow is when everything will be fixed_.  
   
And he slept on, all without, thankfully, one last thought toward Bill Haydon.  
   
Fin.

A/N- I'd also like to say now that I was partly influenced by Mr Cumberbatch himself, who in an article I read some time ago, said that Guillam was in love with an older man, and that man might have been Bill Haydon. :D Also I named the movie boyfriend Mark. He looked like a Mark to me! Let's hope he didn't actually have a name and I missed it!

Thank you for reading and I hoped you enjoyed! <3


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